Garland Ride

Hillary, Michele, Bonnie and Cindy



Today I made plans to ride with my friend Amy. Barbara, who usually rides my horse was also available to ride. But, my horse was being borrowed for the weekend by my friend Susie and her husband who had gone up to camp and ride in Fort Fairfield. Susie had dropped her other horse Cody off with me for the weekend. This would work out good as she would not have to have anyone go to her house to care for him and Louie would not be alone.

Anyway, Amy has several very nice horses so we went up to ride with her. We weren't sure before going who would ride who as Barbara could ride my Louie and I could ride Amy's horse Weezie or Barbara could ride on of Amy's horse. My friend Bonnie trailered us so when she arrived at my house to pick us and Louie up, we piled multiple saddles into her trailer to cover all possible scenarios. We got to Amy's house around 1:00. Then we followed her over to Garland. We stopped along the way to pick up two other woman, Hillary and Michele, and their horses. They had two very nice Fjord horses. It was a nice day. Warm but not humid. Some deer fly but not too bad. It was kind of funny as on the drive there, I was telling Bonnie and Barbara about what happened to a woman on the MulesOnly internet list where she was riding through a field and some barbed wire getting caught in her caged endurance stirrups. We've ridden with caged stirrups for many years with no problems. But, we were saying it was likely a good idea to cover the stirrup cages for safety reasons. And don't you know today I got something caught on my stirrup cage! There were some trees that had been cut near the trail. And a large branch that had a hook like end caught right on the cage. Louie was SOOOO good about it. It did startle him as it swung against his legs when it caught but he didn't make any big moves. I reached down and tried to pull it out but didn't manage it at first. Louie was a little worried but all he did was walk sideways a little and then when I asked him to whoa he did and stood still while I got it off my stirrup. GOOD MULE! Today I also sponged him from the saddle for the first time. He really surprised me by not really being concerned about this. I tossed my sponge on a leash into a brook we were standing in and bounced it around in the water. I did NOT have the sponge attached to me or Louie in any way in case I had to drop it quickly. But, there was nothing to worry about. Other then giving the sponge a look when it first hit the water, he really didn't care when I pulled it up wet and sponged off his neck. He is really maturing.

Bonnie on Dolly

We came to a trail that Amy wanted to take us down. It was a steep challenging trail and she though we'd have fun riding it. She wasn't sure where the trail went so we'd have to turn around at the bottom and come back up. Bonnie and I enjoy challenging trails so we were up for it. Michele and Hillary were too but their horse had not been ridden much this year yet so weren't very well conditioned. They encouraged us to go but decided to wait at the top of the hill for us. It was indeed a fun hill. Well, I'm not sure if Louie would agree with that but he sure did fine with it. He handles hills well. He seems very comfortable going down so I'm guessing his saddle and tack are fitting him well. On the way back up, Amy and Barbara rode slow as Moxie is not well conditioned either and needed to go easy and take breaks along the way. Bonnie went out ahead and kept going the first time they stopped. I hesitated but then followed Bonnie. But, I kept behind her and eventually let her get out of sight. I wanted to see how Louie would handle getting separated from everyone. While he sure was not happy about it, he listened to me and behaved very well. When Amy and Barbara finally arrived back at the top of the hill, Louie grunted in the mule version of a nicker as mules do. The look on the Fjord horses faces when he did that was priceless. Guess they had never heard a mule nicker before!

Later in the ride we were coming through a gravel pit and I felt Louie take some off steps in front! ACK! I jump off and sure enough, Louie has a HUGE rock wedged into his foot. The edges of it are under his shoe, the rock is nearly the size of his whole sole and no part of his hoof is even touching the ground when he steps down on it. I got out my hoof pick but it was not even a close match against that rock. Amy had a better hoof pick and I had pliers. But none of this was any help. We needed to get the shoe off. We worked on it and worked on it and about the time we gave up, along came two men on ATV's. We flagged them down in hopes they had some tools with them. Thankfully they did. A good big screwdriver. That did the trick. Between the screwdriver to pry the shoe up a bit and my pliers to pull the shoe nails, I managed to get the shoe off. Louie was very patient with us.

We got underway again, Louie was just fine with the one bare foot. Then Amy demonstrated some fantastic trick riding. Truly it was impressive. Her horse did a big spin that I KNOW would have left me eating dirt but Amy did an amazing job of hanging on. Then I hear Bonnie say something behind me. (remember, we are in a sand pit) I look back and her mule Dolly, is laying down on her belly and Bonnie had no clue what was going on. She thought something was wrong with Dolly. HA ,nothing a good roll in the sand wouldn't cure!!!! We quickly told Bonnie that Dolly just wanted to roll in the sand and she'd better get her up before her saddle was damaged! Dolly did get right back up thankfully. The rest of the ride went quietly and it was a fun day. We had two good mules, two good Morgans and two good Fjord's on this ride.

Barbara on Moxie and Cindy on Louie

Barbara on Moxie, Cindy on Louie and Dolly


Hillary and Michele on their wonderful Fjords